Pigs Eye: A fine pilsner...

Post by **Badfellow** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:48 pm

Thought I'd share this one while I had a minute to kill. Not really a drinking story, but true nonetheless...

A good friend of mine worked for a short time performing machine maintenance for the now defunct Minnesota Brewing Company. The brewery was in the middle of a bottling run of Pig's Eye pilsner, bottles flying 2000 mph through a massive, 70 year old, block-long bottle washing machine. During mid-run, somewhere inside that clanking behemoth, something goes terribly wrong...
The bottle washer is spitting out returnable bottles crusted with cleaning caustic agent, unremoved labels hanging willy nilly in a sopping mess.
Union Manager shrugs: "What're ya gonna do? Shut down in the middle of a run?" Corporate would have had his balls had he done so.
Rather than shut down, the bottles go onto the bottling line as is, are cased up and shipped out the door.

No small coincidence, there is also a sewage treatment plant in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro named Pigs Eye.

G_W · Post by **G_W** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:27 pm

For some reason my old man loves that stuff.

Mother Goose · Post by **Mother Goose** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 1:08 am

"In a pig's eye." Is that the origin of that phrase, somehow?

happydrunk · Post by **happydrunk** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 9:08 am

Badfellow wrote:Thought I'd share this one while I had a minute to kill. Not really a drinking story, but true nonetheless...

A good friend of mine worked for a short time performing machine maintenance for the now defunct Minnesota Brewing Company. The brewery was in the middle of a bottling run of Pig's Eye pilsner, bottles flying 2000 mph through a massive, 70 year old, block-long bottle washing machine. During mid-run, somewhere inside that clanking behemoth, something goes terribly wrong...
The bottle washer is spitting out returnable bottles crusted with cleaning caustic agent, unremoved labels hanging willy nilly in a sopping mess.
Union Manager shrugs: "What're ya gonna do? Shut down in the middle of a run?" Corporate would have had his balls had he done so.
Rather than shut down, the bottles go onto the bottling line as is, are cased up and shipped out the door.

No small coincidence, there is also a sewage treatment plant in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro named Pigs Eye.

This story reminds me of the risks we all take to get a buzz!

daphne · Post by **daphne** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 11:13 am

I found this on the internet

IN A PIG'S EYE - "Never, highly unlikely. Whether the originator of the saying meant that a poor idea was something to put in a pig's eye or that it would look bad to a pig's eye is a matter of speculation. As an expression of scorn the expression was picked up in 1872 by Petroleum V. Nasby (David Locke) in one of his satirical newspaper columns: 'A poetical cotashun.which.wuz, -- 'Kum wun, kim all, this rock shel fly From its firm base - in a pig's eye.'" From "The Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985).

on the phrasefinder on Google.

Don't know if it helps or not.

Post by **Badfellow** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:41 am

That's pretty close etymology to the beer itself. Thanks daphne.

The label itself (maybe someone out there can dig up an image) depicts a two color relief of a real gnarled, surly looking sailor type- think of the expression on Capt. Ahab's face just after he ate a really big shit sandwich. He's sporting a foam cutter beard and, most prominantly, the guy is wearing an eyepatch. I haven't tracked down the sources yet, but I think this plays some significance to the beer's name as well.

I'm tempted to write an essay on the subject.

Post by **Oggar** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:15 pm

Badfellow wrote:That's pretty close etymology to the beer itself. Thanks daphne.

The label itself (maybe someone out there can dig up an image) depicts a two color relief of a real gnarled, surly looking sailor type- think of the expression on Capt. Ahab's face just after he ate a really big shit sandwich. He's sporting a foam cutter beard and, most prominantly, the guy is wearing an eyepatch. I haven't tracked down the sources yet, but I think this plays some significance to the beer's name as well.

I'm tempted to write an essay on the subject.

It's named after a famous pub owner in Minnesota's history. Before they built the church that would eventually give St. Paul it's name there was a tavern owner who legend hold was in some sort of accident that left him mildly deformed and possibly blind in one eye it was said to look like a pig's eye hence his bar came to be called Pig's Eye. It also served as a post office and in the days before you had uniform addresses and zip codes Pig's Eye was both. If they hadn't built the Church what we call St. Paul would have been Pig's Eye.

thirsty4beer · Post by **thirsty4beer** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 4:29 pm

http://images.picsearch.com/is?5401323737076

sorry the pic's awee bot small, dont know how to post it properly or enlarge it :roll:

Pigs Eye: A fine pilsner...

Pigs Eye: A fine pilsner...

Re: Pigs Eye: A fine pilsner...